Amherst College - dinnerhttps://www.amherst.edu/taxonomy/term/14154
enDinner: “A Normal Guy"https://www.amherst.edu/users/L/u5klefebvre/the_dude_imbibes/the-record-changer/node/614812
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p class="p1"><div id="video-filter-5849be65e58e9" style="width: 100%; max-width: 400px;" class="video-filter"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/XLLDuEYx40I?html5=1&amp;rel=1&amp;autoplay=0&amp;wmode=opaque" width="100%" height="100%" class="video-filter video-youtube video-center vf-xlldueyx40i" frameborder="0"></iframe></div><script> (function ($) {
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})(jQuery);</script><br>Anders Rhedin, better known in the United States by his stage name Dinner, is not someone who can be described in few words. There are some things that he is, explicitly, on his own terms, but for all the words that he has used to describe his music, there remains much left unsaid about his aesthetic and his progression as an artist. And one might wonder, is there anything to really to say about a musician called "Dinner", a man wearing a mix of solid black sweaters, or an alternate pastiche of red lipstick and bright white nail polish, singing creeping lyrics to bewildered audiences?</p>
<p class="p2"><!--break--><img src="http://i.imgur.com/SLsYbvR.gif" alt="" style="max-height:658px;max-width:636px;display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;"><br>There is something oddly familiar about him, but in a way all its own. At times his moves and garb are a brazen echo of a young Bowie or maybe the stage antics of Empire of the Sun, but if I could describe Dinner's music in a single term, it would be "darkwave revival". His synthesizer floors are reminiscent of the best of The Wake, as much another chapter of 80s post-punk as they are a style all their own. In the cacophony of synth, droning guitar riffs, gated drums, and a drippy baritone tessitura, there is something so uniquely nostalgic about Dinner, that it’s deceitful. In many ways Anders harkens back to the lounge lizards (in no pejorative terms), a suave ambience even mirroring the candor of the Rat Pack but with significantly more confessional sincerity. Though their musical styles are an entire departure from his own, there is a certain swagger, something in his stage confidence that is a faint fade of Sinatra, yet without reservation. Some of his dance moves are methodical, drawn together, a lighter hint of Sammy Davis Jr. without tap shoes, or even a more spastic take on Michael Jackson’s <em>Thriller</em>. Maybe a rhythmic take on the movements of Herman Munster or Cosmo Kramer. Dinner is comfortable, grounded, but not aloof. <br><br><img src="http://i.imgur.com/Ufhppa0.png" alt="" width="430" height="241" style="line-height:19.2px;max-height:593px;max-width:636px;display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;"></p>
<p class="p2">What’s most entertaining about Dinner is that for however unnerving his act can be, with a slight wink and a nod he makes his self-awareness immediately apparent. In his own flippant way, he builds relationships with his audience on the most basic level; he radiates an absurdist sentimentality, yet this a word that never leaves his lips. Even in a brief excerpt from his upcoming debut album, you find this quality in the simplest of his lyrics-<br><br></p>
<p class="p1" style="text-align:center;"><em>"I don't care.</em></p>
<p class="p1" style="text-align:center;"><em>Now why would I?</em></p>
<p class="p1" style="text-align:center;"><em>If I would care, then how could I?</em></p>
<p class="p1" style="text-align:center;"><em>I'm a normal guy.</em></p>
<p class="p1" style="text-align:center;"><em>With a normal life.</em></p>
<p class="p1" style="text-align:center;"><em>Any day now...</em></p>
<p class="p1" style="text-align:center;"><em style="line-height:19.2px;">...any day now.”</em></p>
<p class="p2"><br>Speaking in the third person, Anders openly pokes fun at what it means to be a stage personality, to go out and give a part of yourself through artistic creation in a certain packaged Elvisian persona. And yet it is very easy to see where the tongue-in-cheek irony ends, and geniality begins. For those who have followed his music since the emergence of his solo career, there is hardly anything disingenuous about the image that Dinner projects, in a way he is open about his goofball satire on incredulous stage personalities. Entertainer's egos are nothing new to him, having spent the last several years working as a commercial songwriter in LA.<br><br>Conversely when Anders describes his regular yoga and meditation, this is something he promotes to his fans not as a means to somehow further his weird credibility, but as something he wants to share with them. The same could be said of his performances as well, he takes the oddities, the uneasiness of relationships, of the search for a feeling of belonging, and makes many of the most disquieting human emotions manifest in a way worthy of celebration. Feelings that once lurked under the guise of "growing pains" but remain behind cool collected facades in our adult lives. He furthers the notion that at the end of the day, even the smallest experiences, strange exchanges, things we would not even describe as "experiences", are worthy of reflection.</p>
<p class="p1">With each iteration Anders' sound has progressed, become more refined, complete, crisper. As Dinner reaches more audiences one can tell he is not seeking some normalization of his act, whether people understand it or not. It is my hope that he continues to build his catalogue, and reaches more than just those on Captured Tracks who have only followed him since his tour with Mac Demarco. This may get him the exposure he needs, but like Mac, DIIV, and many of his other label-mates, I think Dinner too, will find his greater following. His earliest work has come so far in such a short time, it's easy to forget he hasn't yet released his first full-length album.</p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-1 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/11871">anthropology of music</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/22746">Captured Tracks</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/22834">absurdism</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/11674">music review</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/22835">Rhedin, Anders</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/22836">Anders Rhedin</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/14154">dinner</a></div></div></div><ul class="links inline"><li class="sharethis first last"><a href="/sharethis-ajax/614812" class="mm-sharethis">Share</a></li>
</ul>Thu, 10 Sep 2015 04:08:00 +0000u5klefebvre614812 at https://www.amherst.eduhttps://www.amherst.edu/users/L/u5klefebvre/the_dude_imbibes/the-record-changer/node/614812#commentsElevating the College Partyhttps://www.amherst.edu/amherst-story/magazine/issues/spring_2013/college_row/elevating_the_college_party/node/481037
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p class="fine-print">By Emily Gold Boutilier<strong><br></strong></p>
<p><strong>[Social Life]</strong> For years, Jeehae Kim Goddard ’13 found the social scene at Amherst to be lacking—both in variety and in meaningful connections with new people. “I was surprised when I got here and the standard was, ‘Hey, what’s up?’” she says. “That doesn’t really lead to any conversation.” </p>
<p>Then, while studying abroad at the University of Oxford, she took part in regular formal dinners with professors and fellow students. Goddard enjoyed these dinners so much that she decided to bring the concept back to Amherst.</p>
<p>Thus were born the Select Dinners, sophisticated meals held this spring for Amherst students of legal drinking age. With heavily orchestrated guest lists and seating charts, the Select Dinners aimed to spark discussion among students who were not already close friends, while allowing them to learn from professors in a social setting.</p>
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<p>The third of five meals in the series took place on March 29 in Alumni House. At 7 p.m., some 55 students found their seats at seven round tables decorated with spring flowers, wine glasses and more forks than many people would know what to do with. The men wore jackets and ties, the women dresses and heels.</p>
<p>Hansol Park ’13, saying she’d always wished for more “opportunities like this outside the classroom,” introduced the guest speaker, Professor of Political Science Javier Corrales, who gave a 15-minute talk on U.S.-China relations. (“Don’t be nervous,” he insisted. “The 21st century is going to be the American century.”)</p>
<p>The students got to know their tablemates as the waitstaff poured pinot grigio and served a first course of oysters and scallops. Later came an asparagus salad, fish with morels and more wine. At one table, the discussion moved effortlessly from Corrales’ research on Venezuela, to foreign language study (one woman in the group spoke five languages), to plans for the future. A pre-med student described her lifelong desire to be an ophthalmologist—to experience the satisfaction of helping people see.</p>
<p>As the evening wrapped up, Jeremy Roush, executive chef at Dining Services, gave brief remarks on the food and wine pairings. He said such meals allow his staff to truly shine.</p>
<p>The meal allowed students to shine, as well—to dress up, to make conversation, to practice dining etiquette and social drinking. “This is kind of taking us out of our comfort zone,” said Nicholas Koh ’14. “It adds some formality to the college experience.”</p>
<p class="special-notice2" style="text-align:center;"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><strong>On the menu at the March 29 Select Dinner</strong></span><br><br>Watch Hill oyster and Nantucket Bay scallop<br>Young asparagus and wild arugula in Meyer lemon vinaigrette<br>Wild striped bass in sweet pea broth with early morels, fava beans and potato dumplings<br>Chocolate shortcake in a rhubarb and blood orange nage<br><br><span id="file-272547" class="file file-image file-image-jpeg">
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<p class="fine-print">Photo by Rob Mattson; illustration by Rosie Scott</p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-1 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/18476">Select Dinner Series</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/19025">Select Dinners</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/19026">Goddard</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/19027">Jeehae Kim Goddard</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/14154">dinner</a></div></div></div>Mon, 03 Jun 2013 18:55:42 +0000kdduke481037 at https://www.amherst.eduhttps://www.amherst.edu/amherst-story/magazine/issues/spring_2013/college_row/elevating_the_college_party/node/481037#commentsSee Me After Classhttps://www.amherst.edu/amherst-story/magazine/issues/winter_2013/college_row/see_me_after_class/node/461903
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p class="fine-print">Article by Adam Gerchick ’13</p>
<p class="fine-print">Photo by Rob Mattson</p>
<p><strong>[Faculty]</strong> You and three classmates are dining privately off campus with a distinguished Amherst professor. What do you discuss?</p>
<p>Finding your way around campus. “When I was first here, I would ask older faculty, ‘I’m going to this dorm; where is it?’” Professor of Psychology Catherine Sanderson told her dinner companions in October, commiserating with their oc­casional struggles to navigate campus. “They would say, ‘Oh, that’s the Sigma Chi house!’ or ‘the SAE house!’”— fraternity chapters that no longer existed.</p>
<p>“So not helpful,” she concluded.</p>
<p>With that, an hour and a half of freewheeling conversation began in earnest.</p>
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<strong class="fine-print"><br>Take Your Professor (or Staffer) Out Program </strong><br><span class="fine-print">• Groups of students invite out a professor or staffer. </span><br><span class="fine-print">• The college pays up to $14 per diner. </span><br><span class="fine-print">• Discussion topics are not proscribed.</span></p>
<p>Sanderson and four members of the Class of 2014—Lauren Belak, Allison Merz, Anna Pietrantonio and Keegan Watters—were sharing a table at the popular Fresh Side restaurant on South Pleasant Street, an outing paid for by the college’s Take Your Professor Out program.</p>
<p>Founded more than 10 years ago, TYPO provides funds to groups of students who wish to invite professors for modest meals off campus. It is one of Amherst’s most popular community-building efforts—so popular that the college recently created a sister program, TYSO, for students to take out college staff members.</p>
<p>After ordering tea rolls and Pad Thai, Sanderson and the students, who were all enrolled in her “Health Psychology” course, turned their conversation to heavier topics within the class, including suicide. With advance notice and an opt-out policy, Sanderson had recently shown the class portions of a documentary that featured footage of a suicide attempt, as part of a broader discussion on injury and injury prevention.</p>
<p>Now she solicited advice on the wisdom of her decision. “Do you think there was worth in seeing that,” she asked, “or did the [emotional] costs outweigh the benefits?” The students offered their perspectives. Sanderson said she would consider each.</p>
<p>The variation between lighthearted and serious talk is a hallmark of TYPO, which is administered by the dean of new students and the dean of students. Both offer funding to groups of three to seven students enrolled in a course with the professor they wish to invite. The offices pay up to $14, including tip, per diner. The college does not ask participants to consider particular discussion topics or to report back on the event.</p>
<p>At Fresh Side, Sanderson asked her companions why they chose Amherst. At least two had barely heard of the college when they started their searches. All wanted a school that combined academic rigor with a respected athletic program—three of the four are on Amherst’s swim team—and a campus small enough to support a true academic community.</p>
<p>It may not be strictly academic, but dinners like this help Amherst to fulfill that vision.</p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-1 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/18740">Take Your Professor Out</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/12283">TYPO</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/5729">TYPO Program</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/14154">dinner</a></div></div></div>Thu, 28 Mar 2013 20:24:16 +0000kdduke461903 at https://www.amherst.eduhttps://www.amherst.edu/amherst-story/magazine/issues/winter_2013/college_row/see_me_after_class/node/461903#commentsA Cookbook Refracted Through a Memoirhttps://www.amherst.edu/amherst-story/magazine/issues/summer2012/amherstcreates/rosenstrach/node/429864
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><h4><em>Dinner: A Love Story: It All Begins at the Family Table</em>, by Jenny Rosenstrach ’93 (Ecco)</h4>
<p><span class="fine-print">Reviewed by Catherine Newman ’90 </span><br><strong></strong></p>
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<p><strong>[Nonfiction]</strong> Full disclosure: Jenny Rosenstrach and I are the same person! We’re both raising a pair of school-aged kids; we both blog, cook and blog about cooking; we both love nothing more than sitting down to dinner at the end of the day; and at Amherst we both majored in English, were advised by Judith Frank, dated our future husbands and ate mostly in West. It’s true that Rosenstrach loved the scrambled eggs in Valentine (“They put parmesan and chives in them! They were so good.”) and I went to breakfast about as often as I went to TAP (i.e., never). It’s also true that Rosenstrach just published this delightfully warm and wonderful book that I totally wish I’d written myself and I, uh, didn’t. But then, the book’s so great and she’s so nice that, annoyingly, I couldn’t even stay mad.</p>
<p><em>Dinner: A Love Story</em> is kind of a cook­book refracted through kind of a memoir, and it mixes personal stories with 120 drool-over recipes and inspiring strategies for everything from feeding picky kids (“How to Triumph Over a Tiny Table Terrorist”), to establishing existential priorities (e.g., try to eat dinner with your family every night), to keeping milk from curdling when you add it to a hot sauce (whisk the milk with a little flour first—who knew?). The book grew out of Rosenstrach’s insanely popular blog of the same name, where she began posting her family dinners and beautifully photographed recipes in 2009. Or maybe the book really started with her now-famous “Dinner Diary,” in which she has documented every dinner she’s cooked and eaten for the past 15 years. That’s more than 4,000 dinners—a pretty hefty archaeological record of an otherwise-fleeting thing—and there are pages from this artifact delightfully interspersed throughout the book.</p>
<p>Over the phone, Rosenstrach described <em>Dinner</em> as “a collection of my family dinners from the past 15 years—recipes that have survived every phase of my family’s life, from right after we got married, to the picky-toddlers phase, to now, with older kids, when it’s a little bit saner.” If you have little kids in the house, you’ll feel like the first part should be subtitled, “I Have an Hour to Stand Here and Stir Risotto and You Don’t, Ha Ha,” and you’ll consider skipping ahead to the second, in which she shares her brilliant, optimistic strategies for feeding the kind of people who crawl around under the table in weeping pursuit of Cheerios. Deconstruct is one great strategy, and not in the Derrida way, don’t worry: If you’re making her beautiful salmon salad, for example, you can toss the fish, veggies and dressing together for the “normal people”—after first separating out a few unfrightening components for scared children (and hey—at least we’re talking salmon separated from green beans, not mac separated from cheese).</p>
<p>The book is not called <em>Dinner: A Battleground</em> or <em>Dinner: A Manifesto</em>. It’s a romance about eating well and happily and teaching your kids to do the same. The idea is that, eventually, dinner with kids becomes a whole lot like dinner without kids, only with kids, if you see what I’m saying. “You will not hear me claim that family dinner is the magic bullet, the answer to your prayers, the only way to raise happy children,” Rosenstrach writes in the introduction. “But I will say that it has done more to foster togetherness and impart meaning and joy into my family life on a daily basis than just about anything else I can think of.”</p>
<p>Amen. She’s inspiring in every direction, and there are just so many things to love: the fact that she calls the divine-looking pork shoulder ragu “a dinner party in a pot”; the advice that “When I have no idea what I’m going to make for dinner, I start caramelizing an onion and then assume a meal will fall into place from there”; the suggestion that you picture your family’s dinner plates like a Venn diagram—as long as each person likes two out of three things on the plate, “that’s a solid dinner that does not need to be served with a side of peanut butter sandwich.” The photo of chicken cutlets topped with arugula and summer tomatoes filled me with longing, and her parenthetical note about frying them made me laugh out loud: “(I usually do two at a time, but I’ve been known to cram all of them in at once and then spend the entire meal wishing I had just sucked it up and waited the six extra minutes.)” In sum, the recipes are great (the “Thai-ish Salmon” is a new family favorite around here), and Rosenstrach is funny and fun, warm and real.</p>
<p>But there’s a deeper current in the book—a kind of philosophy about what makes a good life. “The thing is, Andy and I have always excelled at celebrating,” she writes in passing, and maybe it’s as simple as that: a celebratory approach to the everyday. Andy himself (that’s Andrew Ward ’94) recently wrote a funny guest post on the blog, warning that the book is “full of lies”: his wife secretly hates quinoa, even though it’s cheerfully included in the book, she doesn’t grill and her portion sizes run toward the Thumbelina. Whatever. And anyway, Ward can’t keep from gushing: “I’ve read this book about seventeen times and I love it, but I’m biased.”</p>
<p>Dinner notwithstanding, that’s a pretty sweet love story.<br><br><span class="fine-print">Newman wrote the memoir <em>Waiting for Birdy</em>. She blogs at <a href="http://benandbirdy.blogspot.com/">benandbirdy.blogspot.com</a>.</span></p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-1 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/3728">catherine newman</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/7817">cookbook</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/11217">newman</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/14154">dinner</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/17569">Jenny Rosenstrach &#039;93</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/17920">Rosenstrach</a></div></div></div><ul class="links inline"><li class="sharethis first last"><a href="/sharethis-ajax/429864" class="mm-sharethis">Share</a></li>
</ul>Wed, 29 Aug 2012 18:36:18 +0000kdduke429864 at https://www.amherst.eduhttps://www.amherst.edu/amherst-story/magazine/issues/summer2012/amherstcreates/rosenstrach/node/429864#commentshttps://www.amherst.edu/campuslife/our-community/studentgroups/badminton_team/node/241012
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<p style="TEXT-ALIGN:center;"> <span class="inline"><span class="inline"><img class="image original" title="A Typical Day" border="0" alt="A Typical Day" src="https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/248322/original/img%2B2.jpg" width="574" height="209"></span></span>
</p><p> </p></td></tr><tr><td class="special-notice1">The Amherst College Badminton Club is dedicated to providing Amherst students with the facilities, company and environment to play the exciting and fast paced raquet sport of Badminton. ALL LEVELS OF EXPERIENCE ARE WELCOME.<br></td></tr><tr><td class="special-notice2"><strong>Want to sign up?</strong> Contact one of our committee members and join our <b><a title="Facebook page" href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/home.php?sk=group_154363624605684" target="_blank">Facebook group</a></b>. Or simply join us at the <b>Alumni Gymnasium</b> at the <b>designated </b><a href="/campuslife/our-community/studentgroups/badminton_team/BadmintonPracticetimes"><b>Practice Timings</b></a><b>.</b></td></tr><tr><td class="special-notice3">You can...read about <a href="/campuslife/our-community/studentgroups/badminton_team/teamhistory">Badminton Team's History</a> and check out who's on the <a href="/campuslife/our-community/studentgroups/badminton_team/members">team</a>. </td></tr></tbody></table></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-1 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/14153">team</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/14154">dinner</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/14155">badminton</a></div></div></div>Fri, 22 Oct 2010 20:11:22 +0000dsze13241012 at https://www.amherst.edu